Deploying to App Stores

This guide offers best practices around submitting your Expo app to the Apple iTunes Store and Google Play Store. To learn how to generate native binaries for submission, see Building Standalone Apps.

Although you can share your published project through the Expo Client and on your expo.io profile, submitting a standalone app to the Apple and Google stores is necessary to have a dedicated piece of real estate on your users' devices. Submitting to these stores carries stronger requirements and quality standards than sharing a toy project with a few friends, because it makes your app available through a much wider distribution platform.

Disclaimer: Especially in the case of Apple, review guidelines and rules change all the time, and Apple's enforcement of various rules tends to be finicky and inconsistent. We can't guarantee that your particular project will be accepted by either platform, and you are ultimately responsible for your app's behavior. However, Expo apps are native apps and behave just like any other apps, so if you've created something awesome, you should have nothing to worry about!

Make sure your app works on many form factors

It's a good idea to test your app on a device or simulator with a small screen (e.g. an iPhone SE) as well as a large screen (e.g. an iPhone X). Ensure your components render the way you expect, no buttons are blocked, and all text fields are accessible.

Try your app on tablets in addition to handsets. Even if you have ios.supportsTablet: false configured, your app will still render at phone resolution on iPads and must be usable.

Make app loading seamless

Add a splash screen, the very first thing your users see after they select your app.

Use AppLoading to ensure your interface is ready before the user sees it.

iOS-specific guidelines

Apple will ask you whether your app uses the IDFA. Because Expo depends on Segment Analytics, the answer is yes, and you'll need to check a couple boxes on the Apple submission form. See Segment's Guide for which specific boxes to fill in.

Common App Rejections

Binaries can get rejected for having poorly formatted icons, so double check the App Icon guide.

Apple can reject your app if elements don't render properly on an iPad, even if your app doesn't target the iPad form factor. Be sure and test your app on an iPad (or iPad simulator).

Occasionally people get a message from Apple which mentions an IPv6 network. Typically this is just Apple's way of informing you what kind of network they tested on, and the actual "IPv6" detail is a red herring. All of Expo's iOS code uses NSURLSession, which is IPv6-compatible. More info.

System permissions dialogs on iOS

If your app asks for system permissions from the user, e.g. to use the device's camera, or access photos, Apple requires an explanation for how your app makes use of that data. Expo will automatically provide a boilerplate reason for you, such as "Allow cool-app to access the camera." If you would like to provide more information, you can override these values using the ios.infoPlist key in app.json, for example:

The full list of keys Expo provides by default can be seen here. You can provide any overrides you want in the infoPlist configuration. Because these strings are configured at the native level, they will only be published when you build a new binary with exp build.

Localizing system dialogs on iOS

If your app uses a language besides English, you can optionally provide localized strings for the system dialogs. For example, in app.json, you can provide